John Harbaugh tight-lipped about plan for Falcons

Ravens head coach won't reveal game plan, but one interesting position to monitor is wide receiver

August 04, 2012|By Edward Lee

John Harbaugh is well-renowned for keeping his cards close to the vest. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Ravens coach was coy about revealing his plan for the team’s preseason opener against the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night.

“The game plan for Atlanta, we don’t have one,” he said after Friday’s practice at the team’s training complex in Owings Mills. “We will not have one. The game plan will be to run our offense, defense and special teams – pretty basic – and evaluate guys and try to execute. That’s what we’re looking for.”

One position battle that figures to get some scrutiny is the wide receiver group. After the first three of Anquan Boldin, Torrey Smith and Jacoby Jones, the rest of the field is wide open.

Rookie Deonte Thompson was the slot receiver in Boldin’s absence Thursday when the offense employed a three-receiver set, but LaQuan Williams has been a fairly consistent contributor in camp. Logan Payne and rookies Tommy Streeter, Dorian Graham and Devin Goda also could get some playing time.

Harbaugh said the race between those players is a tight affair.

“It’s a good group,” he said. “There’s not one guy in there that you would say that can’t compete. Some guys are ahead of other guys. To me, the next thing is going to be consistency because they’ve all flashed plays. They’ve all made plays. The ability to stack a good practice on top of a good practice, a good series on top of a series, a play on top of a play, will be the determiner.”